What is a miracle?

We spent last weekend discussing what should or shouldn’t be considered a miracle. During the recent spate of violence from Gaza and subsequent retaliation by the Israeli Army, there was a lot of damage on both sides, but also many instances that came to be described as “miracles”. Consider the man who left his car and took shelter in a store when the rocket siren went off, and came back a few minutes later to see that a rocket had hit the car sqare on. That, said husband, is not a miracle, it is statistics. 1500 rockets fired towards populated areas means that some car will be hit. And that is all that happened.

Since 1990, after the first Gulf War, every new building in Israel has to be built with a “safe room”, a kind of small shelter, within the existing space. There are architectural specifications for how this room needs to be built, with reinforced concrete in the walls and metal-shutters that can be closed over the windows. There is also a minimum size. In many apartments it’s actually one of the bedrooms, but it can also be a closet or storage room. We don’t have one, because our building was built before 1990. During the recent battles the residents of southern Israel were told to go to their “safe spaces” when the alarm went off. There were many incidents where people ran to their “safe spaces” only to come out a few minutes later and find that the rest of their apartment was severly damaged. Miracle? Building standard?

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia “a miracle is an event attributed to divine intervention. Alternatively, it may be an event attributed to a miracle worker, saint, or religious leader. A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature. Others suggest that God may work with the laws of nature to perform what people see as miracles. Theologians say that, with divine providence, God regularly works through created nature yet is free to work without, above, or against it as well. In casual usage, “miracle” is seen as any event that is statistically unlikely but beneficial, (such as surviving a natural disaster), or simply a “wonderful” occurrence, regardless of likelihood, such as a birth. Other miracles might be: survival of a terminal illness, escaping a life threatening situation or ‘beating the odds’.”

Next week we will celebrate the Jewish holiday Channuka, the childrens favourite. For eight days we light candles, starting with one and adding one more each night. And we eat delicious, unhealthy, oily food, invented before some spoil-sport came up with the table of nutritional value. I never met a calory I didn’t like, and Channuka doughnuts have very many.

Two weeks ago I was in Rome. In the former city center of ancient Rome, Forum Romanum, stands the Arch of Titus, depicting the victories of the Emperor over, amongst others, the Jews in the Land of Israel in 70 A.D (Second Temple). Titus destroyed the Second Temple and brought back its treasures, and its people, to Rome. We also visited the Colosseum, the original site of all reality shows. The guide told us that the enormous arena, which could seat 50,000 people, was built by slaves brought from the conquered Israel in 80 A.D. By the way, the Colosseum was such an ingenious piece of construction planned by the Roman architects that modern sports stadiums are still modeled on the same principles.